It was a busy weekend in the Nosara area and there no availability at the highly ranked Nosara hotels. This hotel had availability and we know why.

We came to Costa Rica to get away from the crowds and big hotels and the overall Cancun type of experience. There’s nothing wrong with Cancun, but we were searching for something much more rustic and laid back. The town of Nosara is awesome - it is the perfect place for rustic and laid back, except for the L’Acqua Viva hotel.

Apparently this is the area’s first “proper” hotel. Which, I guess, means stuffy and uptight with prices to match. We paid $194 + tax + breakfast = $236 for one night. This is by no means pricey with the Four Seasons (2 hours north) starting at $600, but a lot for an isolated hotel, right on a relatively busy and loud road, with NO VIEW where a car is necessary to get to the beach (10 min driving away).

The hotel rooms were nice and very eco/Bali/trendy. The problem was that the hotel sounded like it was built with hay and bamboo shoots. Seriously, we could hear absolutely everything going on around the hotel. From flip flops pounding up the stairs to neighbor’s conversations, to what sounded like furniture being constantly moved in the room above us to noise from the public road a stone’s throw away. I had to put in ear plugs to fall asleep and was awoken early, not by howler monkeys as is the case in Costa Rica, but people walking down the stairs to breakfast talking at normal tones.

And breakfast was funny- this was the most expensive hotel we stayed at but the “cheapest” breakfast. The room came with free continental breakfast and we had to pay $6 for two eggs. I know that breakfast rarely comes for free at fancy hotels in the states, but when the hotel in Costa Rica that we stayed at the previous night for $95 provided us with an excellent buffet breakfast, The L’Acqua Viva just felt like a rip-off.

The grounds are nice and fancy and there are several nice pools. The hotel is still in its “soft grand opening” phase so it’s still not all up and running, but the problems I had with the place don’t seem like they will go away when more people show up – they’ll get worse.

They do have private two story cabins that looked nice where noise from other guests would not be a problem but they were still close to the road.

The other guests were laughably stuck-up with nannies for their kids and all, which is cool, but definitely not what we were looking for in laid-back Nosara.

If you want luxury in Nosara go the Harmony Hotel and get a private bungalow – we tried but they were always booked!

The next two nights we stayed at a considerably more rustic place, but it was $75, walking distance to the beach and had an ocean view balcony where we could fall asleep to the sounds of the waves and not the next room’s TV.

By the way if you're near the town of Canas, Guanacaste on the Panamerican highway check out the Rescue Shelter Las Pumas. It's really great! You can see rescued pumas, jaguars, ocelots, margays and much more in their beautiful natural environment (not depressing zoos). All the proceeds go the the shelter and it's a quick and easy ecursion.